


Lionheart

by literaldumpster



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gay as hell, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 23:33:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8509906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaldumpster/pseuds/literaldumpster
Summary: Lance and Keith unwittingly end up alone together on a long and dangerous journey.





	1. Beginnings

**Chapter One: Beginnings**

 

“And suddenly you know: It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.”

― **Meister Eckhart**

 

“Wooooo hoo!” Lance throws back his head and whoops jubilantly, letting the other Paladins of Voltron know just who took down the last of the small Galra fighter ships that are now fountaining through space in a flurry of flames.

 The Yellow and Blue Lions knock their heads into each other in celebration, leaving Lance and Hunk dizzy and the Lions reverberating like gongs.   

 “Okay, maybe that was a bad idea,” Hunk admits.

 “Is it just me or did that seem a little too easy?” Pidge skeptically pipes in.

 “Or maybe we’re especially good at kicking Galra _butt_.” Lance folds his hands behind his head, a dreamy, self-congratulatory expression on his face as thankful aliens parade through his brain.

 “Pidge is right,” Shiro interjects. “We shouldn’t let our guards down.”

 “That’s right, Paladins,” Princess Allura chimes in over their headsets. “If I am correct about Zarkon’s intentions, there may be more ships on their way.”

 Lance markedly deflates and joins the others in tensely surveying their surroundings for signs of Galra.

 A signal came from this area about a day earlier, stating that there was a sudden Galra presence in this otherwise peaceful and relatively uninhabited solar system. Allura said that Zarkon’s forces may be moving in on new territory and these ships might be a part of the initial scouting party, to see whether it was worth their time to harvest the Quintessence from these planets.

 

\---

 

After about 20 minutes of staring into space, the Lions begin to drift apart as the Paladins grow restless.

 “I spy something… blue.”

 “Oh, oh! Is iiiit… Is it your helmet?” Hunk guesses. “Oh, no, wait! I got it! It’s that planet over there,” he finally surmises, crossing his arms over his chest and looking pleased as he sizes up the bright blue planet far off in the distance.

 “Nope.” Lance yawns with satisfaction and kicks his legs out so that they rest on the control panel.

 “What!” Hunk shouts, miffed.

 “Is it your Lion? _Again_?” Pidge twitches visibly in annoyance.

 “How’d you know?!” Lance is thoroughly enjoying his fun.

 “Lucky guess,” Pidge mutters under their breath.

 Keith groans, agitated, still looking out at the planets ahead, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. It all just looks tranquil. He leans further forward towards his view of the outside, suspicious.

 “Guys, I’m sorry, I gotta pee. Do we have time for a potty break?”

 Hunk starts to clamber out of his seat when Shiro says suddenly and sharply, “Wait. Do you guys hear that?”

 It starts off soft, but disquieting. The sound of something very big, but muffled by miles of deep water.

 “Uhhh what is that?” Hunk shifts his eyes nervously, sinking back down into his chair. “Guys?”

 “Shhh,” Keith hushes. “I think it’s getting closer.”

 “Closer indeed,” Allura muses aloud, speaking for the first time in almost a half an hour.

 “Allura, what do you see?” Shiro peers toward the castle to the left of the Lions.

 “I—I don’t know. I think it’s—“

 And then the sound is suddenly deafening, groaning and somewhat mechanical as it surfaces.

 Hunk and Pidge are screaming loudly into their helmets as what looks like an enormous space tanker emerges from a wormhole alarmingly close to the far side of the castle. By the looks of it, it’s unquestionably one of Zarkon’s with its harsh lines and malevolent purple glow. Far longer than any Galra battleship, the tanker is monstrous. Its bulbous, zeppelin-like exterior is etched with glowing Galran symbols. The back of the ship coalesces into a gargantuan claw, suspending large tanks capable of holding massive quantities of _something_.

 “So _that’s_ how they transport Quintessence,” Allura ponders in awe.

 “Princess! Duck and cover!” the Paladins hear Coran wail in the background. The tanker is only ticks away from ramming straight into the castle.

 The Paladins only have a moment to stare in amazement at the ship looming over the Castle, much like a shark would to its prey. Then the particle barrier flashes bright blue upon impact and flickers out, and the castle begins to careen towards the Lions.

 “Oh, no,” Hunk panics succinctly. The Lions shoot off in opposite directions to avoid getting hit.

 “Jeez, we were almost flattened back there!” Lance exclaims, taking stock of where the other Lions are. He finds them interspersed on either side of the now stable and stationary castle.

 “Allura, what’s your status?” Shiro checks in.

 “Shiro, the particle barrier is down and our energy levels are dangerously low. When the tanker hit us, all our defenses went offline. Paladins, you must take down that ship!” Allura urges.

 Shiro quickly delivers his pep talk. “Alright, Team Voltron! Let’s show the Galra Empire what we’ve got!” In the meantime, the tanker has moved perceptively closer and has become menacingly large.

 “Just give us the word, Shiro,” Keith says, and then the tanker abruptly begins dropping dozens of smaller fighter crafts from its undercarriage.

 “Keith, Pidge, Lance—take the fighters. Hunk, you’re with me.” Shiro begins piloting the Black Lion towards the tanker, Hunk following closely behind in the Yellow Lion, downing a few enemy crafts on their way.

 “Here we goooooo!” Lance veers off to the rightmost section of the Galra onslaught.

 “Kitty Rose is next on stage!” Pidge hoots and swings over to the left.

 “Alright, Red,” Keith murmurs to his lion as he pilots towards the Galra fighters, the Red Lion firing bright beams at those in nearest proximity.

 

\---

 

“Hunk, any luck?” Shiro calls out as he rakes the Black Lion’s claws along the length of the hull, hoping to find some sort of weakness.

 Hunk grunts as the Yellow Lion flips back to assess the damage he hopefully just inflicted. “Ahhhh nope.” He gnaws fretfully at his bottom lip, avoiding random fire from the fighter ships further out.

 The ship is incredibly tough, like it has some kind of thick exoskeleton, impervious to the Lions’ laser beams and cannons. Hunk propels the Yellow Lion’s hearty body into the side of the tanker until he can feel an aching in his own shoulder. “I can’t even make a dent!” Hunk cries.

 Shiro ceases fire and hovers in space for a moment to contemplate. “There has to be a way,” he murmurs, determined.

 “Wait a minute! The smaller ships came from underneath the ship!” Hunk exclaims.

 “You might just have something there, Hunk. C’mon!” Shiro ushers his fellow Paladin to the ship’s undercarriage.

 

\---

 

“Lance, look out!” Pidge calls out as another ship descends upon the Blue Paladin. As Pidge prepares for the assist, an enemy fighter pries them away from the group.

 “Oh, quiznak,” Lance laments.  Blue’s dashboard lights up sonar-like blips pinpointing a complete ring of fighter crafts circling closer. Lance fires up Blue’s ice beam and takes out one ship and then another, weaving through the wreckage and attempting to escape the encroaching Galra spacecraft. Lance is intensely aware of the enemy fire peppering his Lion’s armored back as more ships swoop in, now attacking from all sides. Clockwise, Lance turns slowly as red warning lights flash around him, searching for an out. Finding there are none, he shuts one eye tightly and grimaces, preparing to go down.

 

\---

 

Underneath the ship, Hunk and Shiro graze slowly over the belly of the tanker. In the middle of the expanse of smooth metal there is a vast triangular, glowing depression.

 “Whoa, what’s this?” Hunk remarks.  “Do you think the ships came from in there?”

 “Your guess is as good as mine,” Shiro replies. “If you’re right, this might lead straight to the interior of the ship. If we time this right, we might be able to take it down.”

 Hunk nods in determination and the two drift from the ship to wait for the next surge of assailants.

 

\---

 

“I got you!” Keith shouts and swoops in, taking out half of the ships in a remarkable, fiery display. Lance’s eyes pop open in surprise, expecting to be very dead very soon. He blasts the remaining enemies blocking his exit and extricates himself from the streaming remains of the Galra.

 “Man, that was a close one!” Lance exhales a sigh of relief; then he remembers his pride. “What’s the matter Zarkon, couldn’t keep up with the Blue Paladin?”

 “You’re welcome,” Keith replies flatly.

 “Hey, I didn’t ask for your help! I could’ve taken them on my own,” Lance huffs.

 “No you couldn’t have, you just said it was a close one!” Keith cries, exasperated.

 Lance juts his lower lip into a distinctive pout and whines something unintelligible.

 “Here we go again,” Pidge sighs and turns their attention towards the next wave of incoming ships.

 The three young Paladins are battling in tight formation and Keith and Lance are still bickering when Pidge notices something in their periphery. “They’re headed for the… _Guys, they’re headed for the castle_!”

 Keith and Lance immediately drop the argument and focus their attention to the fighter ships that have managed to escape their line of attack and are quickly approaching the defenseless castle beyond.

 “Paladins, the Castle’s weapons system is not responding! We need you!” cries Allura.

 “We’re coming, Allura!” Pidge assures her and the three Paladins race to defend the castle.

 

\---

 

The luminescent triangle underneath the tanker grows incrementally brighter until finally the ship lets a loud, mechanical groan.

 “I think this is it. Take aim, Hunk!” Shiro shouts.

 Then the light suddenly shines to its full potential. “Fire!”

 Hunk and Shiro, squinting, fire the Lions’ laser cannons directly into the triangle of light.

 “I hope this works!” Hunk bellows as the Yellow Lion begins to shudder with the effort.  

 Finally, everything seems to halt. The Lions cease to quake, the harsh, purple light pauses, and the moment seems like one great inhale.

 And then comes the exhale.

 The tanker explodes, light saturating the sky like a 1940s atomic bomb recording. All the ships surrounding the tanker, Galra and Altean alike, tumble away from the heart of the solar system in a frenzy. All sound over the Paladins’ comms  is one long stream of distressed wails and Hunk’s uneasy stomach.

 Eventually the spinning stops when the Lions are able to right themselves. They are now on the far edges of the solar system with the Galra ships nowhere in sight. Once the dust settles, the Paladins attempt to process what just happened.

 “Are we still alive?” Pidge asks incredulously.

 “I just puked. So many times,” Hunk gasps.

 “Where’s the castle?” Lance wonders.

 “Uhhh… guys?” Keith motions to the large, white blur now hurtling past the Lions not of its own accord.

 “Let’s go, Team!” Shiro encourages and the Paladins shoot off to stabilize the comically whirling battleship.

 

\---

 

“That was so cool,” Lance rehashes the previous events aloud. “And that last explosion?! Amazing!”

 “Man, I am so hungry,” Hunk says, participating in a completely different one-sided conversation and woefully rubbing his stomach

 Lance throws his arms over Hunk and Keith’s shoulders. “Defenders of the Universe!”

 Keith peers over at Lance’s arm quizzically, but doesn’t refuse it.

 “I could really go for a corn dog right now. Or maybe some of those little pork sliders?” Hunk demonstrates the size of the sandwiches with his fingers and then, satisfied, chortles, “Oh ho ho, yeah. Definitely pork sliders.”

 “I was like “pew pew” and then _Pidge was like_ _“hyah hyah!”_ ” Lance retracts his arms to reenact the battle sequence with his hands.

 Pidge smiles indulgently as they continue on their way, leading the three boys down the hall towards the control room.

 “Paladins! There you are!” Allura cries out, looking a little less composed than usual (probably due to their erratic spin through space). Coran is leaning over various control panels, his mustache slightly askew, positively flustered as he checks in on the Castle’s systems.

 “Are you alright?” Shiro asks, concerned, glancing between Allura and Coran.

 “Yes. Yes, we’re fine,” Allura replies, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

 “Just a bit shaken up is all!” Coran gabs, brandishing the metal tool he is using to investigate underneath a panel in the floor.

 Once all of the Paladins have arranged themselves around the Princess, she begins, “It appears that when the Galra ship made contact with the Castle’s particle barrier, it brought down all of our weapons and defenses.” She then looks toward Coran. “Although Coran believes that he can restore the Castle’s defenses using the materials we have on hand, we need something relatively rare to get our weaponry back online.”

 “So, what, like another Balmeran crystal?” Pidge asks.

 Coran responds now, standing. “No, no, something much more elusive, I’m afraid... It’s called an Antimatter Particulator.”

 “Gesundheit,” Lance proffers.

 Coran blinks at him curiously and then moves on. “It’s a bit of old Altean technology. It was once relatively commonplace, but since Altea is now… Well, it’s going to be rather difficult to find!”

 “I believe we’ll find what we’re looking for  on a planet called Tarus. Tarus is the Universe’s largest known trading hub,” Allura explains.

 “Like an intergalactic flea market?” Pidge asks.

 “Yes, I suppose so,” Allura responds.

 “So, when do we leave?” Keith asks, earning a despairing cry from Hunk who has just started shoveling green goop into his mouth.

 “As soon as possible,” Allura confirms, but then continues, “However, we have also received a nearby distress signal.”

 “Oh, no. Not another one of those. Nuh uh.” Hunk crosses his arms stubbornly and shakes his head fiercely.

 “The Paladin code states that we must help all in need,” Allura recites diplomatically, though her eyes glint testily.

 Before Hunk can protest, Shiro steps in. “We need to split up, then.”

 “Yes. Due to what transpired during the last distress call, I’d like to send out a small party to Tarus while the majority of us investigate the distress beacon,” Allura elucidates. “The way to Tarus is somewhat… difficult, so we’ll need our most agile pilots.”

 Lance steps forward lazily, an arrogant smirk on his face. “That’d be me--”

 “Keith, you’ll go to Tarus,” Shiro delegates and Keith nods in understanding.

 “What? That guy?!” Lance sputters, his hands fluttering uselessly as the Paladins begin to file out of the command room to prepare.

 “Fine, Lance. You can go too,” Shiro sighs, sounding like a tired mother trying to avoid a blowout.

 “What? Him?!” Keith fumes, stopping dead in his tracks, gesturing to Lance.

 “Saddle up, Team Voltron! We leave in half an hour!” Shiro calls out.


	2. There's No Place Like Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lance and Keith are in very big trouble.

**Chapter Two: There’s No Place Like Home**

 

“Maybe you had to leave in order to really miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved your starting point was.”

 **―** **Jodi Picoult** **,** **Handle with Care**

 

The dense asteroid belt surrounding the Cronos Galaxy stares sinisterly at Lance. He gulps audibly. “Maybe we should find a way around,” he squeaks.

 “Nope, we’re going straight through. Going around will take too long,” Keith says, determined and faintly satisfied with Lance’s discomfort.

 “Yeah, okay,” Lance says, feigning courage. “That’s fine. That’s totally fine.” He clears his throat. “I just wasn’t sure if you could handle it,” he sniffs.

 “Well, if you’re so brave, why don’t you go first?” Keith invites smugly.

 Lance stiffens. Timid, he peers into the crowded field of rock.

 “I _said_ \--”

 “Fine!” Lance agrees haughtily and pilots the Blue Lion a little closer to the belt. He inches forward past the first rock, testing the waters, then carefully circumnavigates the next cluster.

 Keith makes a terse, impatient noise in the back of his throat.

 “ _What?_ I’m just being _cautious_ !” Lance yelps defensively. “Not like _you’d_ know anything about that.”

 Keith rolls his eyes and unceremoniously shoots off into the asteroid belt. He weaves expertly through the narrow slivers of space between rocks and speeds out of sight.

 “Pfft. Like it’s hard,” Lance scoffs and stretches his arms out, confidently grasping his lion’s controls. He urges Blue forward, gaining momentum as he ducks under a small asteroid and then rises up over another. Lance hoots in victory and then spies a particularly tight gap ahead. “Thread the needle, thread the needle, _thread the needle_ ,” he murmurs, pushing Blue forward. He maneuvers the Lion so that she drifts onto her side as she rockets forward. “Thread… the… what the?!”

 In his concentration, Lace fails to recognize a rather large asteroid hurtling towards him. “Oh, man.” The space rock T-bones Blue and launches them into another asteroid. Both Paladin and Lion affectedly wince upon impact.

 “Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no!” Lance panics as the last crash propels them in the opposite direction towards an impassable wall of rocks.

 

\---

 

The Red Lion paces irritably on the other side of the asteroid belt. Keith exhales loudly in irritation. “This shouldn’t be taking this long,” he grumps, frustrated at Lance, and partially frustrated at himself for potentially losing him. What would Shiro say? “Oh, no.” Keith stiffens. “ _What would Shiro say_?”

 Keith stares intensely back towards where he last saw his fellow Paladin and sighs, long and defeated. “I have to go back,” he resolves.

 Then the Blue Lion staggers out of the field of rock, faintly sparking.

 Angry, but relieved, Keith shouts, “Lance!” Then he amends, “Took you long enough.”

 “Nice welcome party,” Lance gripes. “I almost _died_!”

 “C’mon, Lance,” Keith mutters and leads the way further into Cronos as he indulges a few stormy thoughts.

 Lance follows behind him reluctantly, bellyaching about Keith’s lack of concern for his wellbeing.

 When Lance finally accepts that Keith has no intention of responding to him, he quiets down and begins to look around as they speed through the stars. “Hm. It’s pretty out here,” he comments, craning his neck so he can get a better look at the planet to his left which appears nearly entirely translucent, almost like a glass marble. As they travel forward, the core of the planet roils as if it were a fluid, milky opal. It glitters radiantly and throws out bright beams of pastel color. “Whoa! Keith, do you see this?!”

 “Hm?” Keith breaks out of his reverie and quickly identifies what Lance is talking about, squinting into the light. “Huh,” he says softly. “Would you look at that.”

 Lance gapes at the passing planet until it’s swallowed by the distance, blinking away spots of color in his vision. Then up ahead he spies a compact little planet circling a bright yellow star at the center of one of the many solar systems of Cronos. He sees clouds; perhaps they’re a bit orange and dusty, but they look like Earth’s clouds. And then he sees _lights. Just_ like Earth’s more industrialized areas, he can see their familiar glitter. His heart aches looking at it. Perhaps this is just a false imitation of home, but it’s good enough for him. “What planet is that?”

 “I dunno.” Keith shrugs indifferently.

 “Maybe we should check it out,” Lance begins innocently. “There might be a Particula-whatsit down there.”

 “Lance, that isn’t Tarus,” Keith warns.

 Lance watches anxiously as the planet passes by. “We don’t even know if there’s one _on_ Tarus! It can’t hurt to check it out.”

 “We don’t know what’s down there,” Keith reasons, growing suspicious and a little annoyed.

 Lance, suddenly and incomprehensibly angry, makes a split second decision. “Well, I’m going, with or without you!” He flips Blue around and makes for the exosphere of the small planet that looks like home.

 “Lance!” Keith calls out behind the Blue Lion. He’s conflicted--caught between traveling to Tarus on his own and letting Lance play out whatever half-baked plan he had in mind, and chasing after the Blue Paladin. But he feels responsible for Lance; whether the two are peers or colleagues or even friends at this point, Keith feels obligated to keep him safe. In the end it’s guilt that guides him to the orange planet.

 Red shoots towards the Blue Lion, shuttering with speed until the two are neck and neck and entering the atmosphere head-first. It reminds them of the time during training when they both nose-dived into the ground in a show of rivalry.

 They slow to a more reasonable pace as they gain clear sight of the ground, neither Paladin acknowledging the other. It looks like an uninhabitable desert, but Keith has to hand it to Lance, there is a bustling city beneath all that orange dust. Maybe they would find what they were looking for here.

 Then the Lions begin to fall from the sky.

 Bright blue sparks fly as they plummet downwards.

 “What’s happening?!” Lance shouts as he tugs on Blue’s controls without any response. The Lion roars in protest. Lance’s stomach continuously churns with the falling sensation.

 “I don’t know!” Keith responds, also desperately trying to get Red to slow her fall, leaning forward against his better judgement to glimpse outside.

 It looks like there’s some sort of net around them crackling with bright electricity, like discharges from a Telsa coil colliding with a Faraday cage.

 The desert earth grows closer and closer at an alarming rate and the Paladins involuntarily shut their eyes as the Lions hit the ground in an explosion of dust. Only, they never actually touch the ground. They hover, just above it, unharmed and still unable to move.

 “ _What is happening_?” Lance hisses.

“Why do you think _I_ know?” Keith whispers back, almost conspiratorially. The young Paladin rises slowly and starts to move towards the exit, when suddenly the mouths of both Lions are involuntarily cracked open. Their jaws hit the dirt with a reverberating thud.

 Everything is quiet for a moment. Keith pauses to listen, crouching and ready. Lance begins to uncurl himself from his seat.

 Then, steadily, white mist begins to creep on board the Lions. “What is that?!” Lance cries, now standing on top of his chair, purveying from above.

 “For the last time, _I don’t know_!” Keith yells and tries to squint through the fog.

 “Ugh, it smells like eggs!” Lance plugs his nose with one hand and tries to swat the smell away with the other. He screws up his eyes, trying to make sense of what now quite looks like one uniform cotton ball. “I can’t see anything!”

 Keith, frustrated, utters a low noise in the back of his throat. “I’m gonna go check it out.” He darts through the smoke and presses his back flush to the wall, ignoring Lance’s complaints on the other end of the comms. As he inches down the ramp, he still can’t see anyone or anything. He can’t even make out his hand in front of his face. Without his sight, Keith grows increasingly uneasy.

 At the bottom of the ramp, his foot bumps lightly into something foreign to him. Keith kneels down to retrieve it. “What…?”

 Then everything goes black.

 Lance, now wading through the fog in hopes of reaching the exit, hears a faint, but distinct grunt of pain from his helmet. “Keith…?” No answer. Lance looks around helplessly in the dense field of white. “Ha-ha, very funny. You got me.” He waits for a response, hands on his hips. The line remains quiet. “This _really_ isn’t a good time for you to develop a sense of humor, Kei...Keith?”

 Lance tilts his head to one side at the dark, human-shaped figure a few feet away. Then, with a bright jolt of terror, another dark figure slips out from behind the other. And then another. “Uh oh.” Lance takes a step back and feels for his bayard, anticipating having to fight his way out, only, it’s not there. “Double uh oh.”

 Not sure of what he hopes to accomplish, Lance rushes the three figures. He violently pushes through a small gap between them, and stumbles down the remainder of the ramp and into the light.

 The desert heat hits him full-force and the brightness of the landscape leaves him blinded. Lance staggers, shielding his eyes behind his forearm. Then someone grabs ahold of his arms, wrenching them back. “Hey, watch it!” Lance cries out indignantly. He throws his elbow back into his assailant’s barrel chest, earning a grunt and a free arm. Vision still sun-stained, he twists fitfully into the grasp of another enemy. Then a sharp blow to his head leaves the scenery significantly darker and star-spotted.

 Lance, woozy and still weakly struggling manages to catch snapshots of the orange dirt, the tall captors dressed head to toe in loose cloaks, the beginnings of a sand coated metropolis. The last thing he sees before his vision goes dark is Keith, feet dragging and head lolling ahead of him.

  


\---

 

“Good morning,” Lance mumbles vaguely, smacking his lips and burrowing further into something soft and warm beneath him. The room beyond his eyelids is decidedly dark, so he resolves to go back to sleep.

 Keith’s eyes violently pop open. “Where are we?”

 “Where are… what?” Lance lifts his head up from Keith’s stomach, a trail of drool accompanying him.

 Keith gruffly rolls Lance’s lanky body off of him much like one unrolls a carpet and he springs to his feet. “Lance!” Keith shouts. “You _idiot_!”

 “ _What?_ What did _I_ do?!” Lance asks, his voice jumping up an octave as he sits up, rubbing the tender spot on his head and performing a subtle breath check.

 Seething, Keith paces the short length of the small, unfurnished cell they woke up in. He attempts to speak, but all that comes out is a thundering growl. “ _You--_ ” Keith takes one look at Lance sitting there innocently and feels his right arm winding up for a good right hook. He turns to face the wall and slams his fist into the metal, leaving an impressive dent. Keith heaves out a few shaky breaths, ignoring the pulsing pain in his hand.

 “Jeez, what did that wall ever do to you?” Lance comments casually, brushing the dust off of his legs as he stands.  

 Keith whips around and stares him down, eyes blazing with wrath.

 Lance takes an involuntary step back and holds up his palms. “Easy, there,” he reasons.

 Keith attempts to organize his thoughts, but they all come spilling out as he berates Lance. “Why did you-- _what_ could you _possibly_ \-- what were you _thinking_ ?” He takes a moment to stare disbelievingly at his fellow prisoner. “I can’t believe this. _You_ ,” Keith pauses to clench his jaw and he stabs his finger at Lance’s chest. “We’re stranded on an alien planet, _without_ our Lions, _without_ any way to contact the others--”

 “--Whoa, whoa, whoa, how is this _my_ fault? I’m sorry, I didn’t ask to get captured by aliens,” Lance retorts.

 “Of course we didn’t ask to get captured by aliens!” Keith explodes. “But we shouldn’t have even been on this planet in the _first place_!”

 “There was no way I could’ve known this would happen!” Lance insists.

 “Why can’t you just do as you’re told?!” Keith despairs.

 “Oh, that’s rich coming from you, _Mr. Impulsive_ ,” Lance chides.

 Keith holds his head in his hands, a headache starting to pulse away, and snarls in frustration.

 “What, got nothing to say?” Lance baits.

 Keith remains silent and massages his temples. He turns his back to Lance and paces to the other end of the cell.

 “ _Cat got your tongue_?” Lance attempts once more, but to no avail.

 Keith gloomily leans against the far wall and gazes out the small barred window leading to the world beyond. Three luminescent moons hang in the sky-- one bright red and threateningly close, the other two smaller and pale yellow.    
“Fine,” Lance sniffs and strolls over to the opposite wall.

 Some time passes, the two of them sitting in contemplative silence. Tension balloons between them and the moons cast wan shadows through the barred window. They begin to grow cold in the aftermath of the argument, breath foggy and fingers stiff.

 “I’ll never see my family again. Zarkon’s going to take over the Universe,” Lance reflects hollowly and then his chin begins to wobble as he holds back tears.

 Keith sighs and finally looks over at the shape of Lance in the other corner of the room. “No, we’re _going_ to find a way out and we’re _going_ to get our Lions back,” he says matter-of-factly.

 “ _How?_ ” Lance asks miserably, breathing warm air on his fingers.

 Keith squints through the darkness. “I say we wait until daylight to see just what we’re up against and then decide on a plan of action.”

 Lance yawns and crawls onto his side, using his arm as a pillow. “Sounds good,” he responds tiredly.

 The Paladins are quiet for a while. Keith shivers imperceptibly by the window, unable to sleep. Lance shudders on the cold of the floor, separated only by a thin fabric suit now that his armor has been stripped from him by their captors. His teeth begin to chatter.

 Lance rolls onto his back with a huff. “Too cold, can’t sleep. I give up.”

 Keith doesn’t respond, but shuffles his feet briefly to get some feeling back in them.

 Lance sighs and stares up at the cracks in the ceiling. “I miss the beach,” he says, and then hesitates before he continues. “Before I enrolled at the Garrison, some nights I would walk down to the beach a few blocks from my house. Just to be alone, I guess. Home… home could be _loud_.” Lance smiles softly. “Then I would just lay in the sand and look up at the stars. I remember... it was never cold.” He shuts his eyes, trying to preserve the memory of the way the stars looked from his beach, until he hears something stirring from the other end of the room.

 Lance watches as Keith stands stiffly, walks to the middle of the room, and inelegantly plops himself down on the ground again. “C’mere,” he says, lying on his side.

 “What?” Lance sits up.

 “We’re both too cold to sleep, now come on,” Keith says gruffly.

 Lance hesitates. What Keith is suggesting is weirdly intimate. Lance imagines it would a strange position to be in with any of his fellow Paladins, except maybe Hunk because the guy’s a living teddy bear. Still, he complies, urged on by the creaking cold settling into his joints.

 Lance walks tentatively towards the center of the room and sits down slowly, like he’s easing himself into a hot tub. He lies down facing away from Keith, not quite touching, but close enough the feel his warmth.

 They stay like that for a moment until Lance begins to shiver again. Keith lets out a long sigh and repositions slightly so that their backs are touching. Lance can feel Keith’s spine and shoulder blades shifting as his lungs expand and contract and he remembers that he hasn’t slept this close to someone else since the brief stint when he shared a bed with his younger brother. Finally warming up, Lance attempts to sleep.

 The cell fades away into restless dreams and the next time Lance awakens, it’s still night and Keith is shaking him. “Lance, there’s something outside,” he’s saying.

 Lance lifts his head groggily. “...what?”

 “Look.” Keith lifts his chin to the barred window.

 Lance looks hard at the window, blinking the sleep out of his eyes, and only sees orange dust and the three moons in the sky that have changed position since he last saw them. He frowns. “Must be your imagination. Iiiii’m going back sleep.” He flops onto his side once more and shuts his eyes.

 Keith gapes at Lance for a moment, mouth slightly ajar. Then he rolls his eyes and stands just under the window to get a better view of what he saw before.

 Lance squirms uncomfortably in the new-found cold now that Keith is gone and, annoyed, sits up. He looks skeptically out the window, and then his expression changes as a shadow darts beyond the bars. “Whoa, did you see that?!” Lance yelps.

 Keith shushes him and waves for him to come closer. Lance creeps up beside the Red Paladin and together, they tensely observe the outside world. There’s nothing for a few minutes and the both of them begin to wonder if it was all in their imagination, if a screw was knocked loose by those cronies in the cloaks.

 But then the two of them nearly jump out of their skin as four very large spider eyes blink back at them. “You might wanna stand back,” the eyes say.

 “What?!” Lance cries in abject terror. Keith stands stricken and pale beside him.  

 All four eyes roll impatiently. “You! Stand! Back!” she says at a condescending speed and then, as if to someone behind her, “Tourists, am I right?” She focuses her attention back to the two Paladins. “Well?”

 Lance and Keith share a pointedly petrified look. Lance grabs ahold of Keith’s sleeve and tugs. “I think she wants us to go back there,” he says, motioning his eyes from the window to Keith to the wall behind them and back again. Keith nods slowly in comprehension and they stumble away.

 “Aw, they do understand.” The alien outside the window stands and, to Keith and Lance’s horror, reveals six very stocky and very hairy spider legs.

 “I’m gonna vomit,” Lance wheezes.

 Then the remarkably large spider hollers “Fire in the hole!” and things get very, very loud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The alternate title for this chapter is Tight Lil Spacesuit. Thank you for your readership and please feel free to leave comments! 
> 
> Also, thank you Hannah for your friendship, support, and edits. And also thanks for the sweet, sweet Klance fanart.


	3. The Moonslighters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lance and Keith make new friends.

**Chapter Three:** **The Moonslighters**

 

“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”   
― **Ernest Hemingway**

 

“Were you able to locate them?” Shiro asks tensely. Hunk and Pidge hover behind him, anxiously waiting.

“No, I’m afraid not,” Allura says. “It’s like something is cloaking the Lions’ positions. I can’t see them.” She shakes her head sorrowfully, and then looks up, hope springing to her eyes. “But we will find them, I promise.”

“But how?” Pidge asks, finally voicing the unspoken concern. “We’ve tried contacting them every way we know how, but they’re not answering... What do we do now?”

There’s a moment of silence as Allura, Coran, and the remaining Paladins allow themselves to think about just that. What _are_ they going to do? They can’t ascertain the Lions’ positions, Keith and Lance aren’t responding, and they have no way of knowing if they’re even alright. All they really have to go on is where they were headed. All they have is Tarus.

“We go after them,” Shiro says with new determination.

“All of us?” Pidge questions.

Allura nods once, confirming. “All of us.”

“But I thought you said the way to Tarus was too difficult,” Hunk reminds them.

“Not if we take a slight detour!” Coran announces and moves to the podium at the center of the room. “Keith and Lance entered the Cronos Galaxy through the asteroid belt, here,” he says, pulling up the bright blue hologram and pointing out the large field of floating rocks surrounding the galaxy like a shell. Then he scrolls briefly to the right and gestures to an opening. “We enter here.”

“Because of the asteroids, it is inadvisable for us to open a wormhole closer to our entrance to Cronos, so we will need to travel for about a day’s time,” Allura explains.

Shiro nods to the others. “Then we better get going.”

 

\---

 

The dust clears slowly. Lance and Keith, a hollow ringing replacing the momentary deafness, grasp at shapes in the particulate fog. Eyes stinging, they blink furiously through the gaping hole in the cell wall.

“Who are these people?” Lance chokes out between hearty coughs.

“I dunno, but whoever they are, I think they’re breaking us out,” Keith replies with tense uncertainty.

Then with a final gust of wind, they find a relatively clear view of the desert beyond and the silhouette of a small, four-legged robot; a small, four-legged robot with a menacingly large blaster protruding from its back that happens to be trained directly on the paladins.

Both Keith and Lance let out a long, freakishly synchronized shout and flinch violently away.

“Relax, its friendly!” a familiar voice shouts and then they hear a long, high whistle and the robot happily retracts the blaster. It trundles on its all-terrain treads over the sand and to the side of the spider-like alien that greeted them just moments before.

Lance slowly drops his arms and the leg he was attempting to shield himself with. “Wow,” he breathes in awe. Keith blinks heavily, his face painted entirely gray from the explosion.

They barely have any time to process, however, because angry shouts followed by increasingly loud footsteps carry from inside the compound.

“Time to go!” the spider barks and she sprints with startling speed to a strange, motorized bicycle parked out in the sand. She straddles her six stocky legs on either side it. “Rocket, take big ears! I’ve got pretty boy.”

Rocket, an oddly shaped yellow alien already astride another bike gives her two big thumbs up and starts up the engine. Fan blades inside the wheels begin to whirl and the bike hovers a solid foot above the ground as the wheels turn themselves 90 degrees so that they’re parallel to the ground.

Both Lance and Keith continue to stand behind the massive pile of steaming rubble that used to be a wall with absolutely no intention of moving.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” the spider mutters, looking up impatiently as if searching for an understanding god. She kickstarts her bike and swings it around to the giant hole in the prison. “Ride or die, pretty boy,” she repeats and looks in expectantly as fists begin to pound insistently on the cell door.

The Paladins share a look that tells them that they really don’t have a better option right now. They wanted an escape, and an escape they got. Both Lance and Keith approach the bike.

The spider holds a cautionary palm up to Lance as he attempts to get on. “Uh uh, not you. _Him_.” She nods to Keith and he begrudgingly, but obediently, climbs on behind her. “Hang on!” she orders and then soon the two of them are growing smaller on the horizon.

“What?!” Lance’s jaw very nearly hits the dirt and then the cell door violently swings open.

The yellow, knobby-armed alien in giant goggles and a goofy flap hat swoops in and holds out his hand to Lance. “Hop on!”

“Why is _he_ pretty boy? I’m a very pretty boy!” Lance cries indignantly as he clambers onto the bike, dodging errant laser beams as a cloaked alien with decidedly poor aim opens fire.

“You just keep telling yourself that, big ears!” Rocket calls over the roar of the engine. “Hang on to your knarkles!”

“My what?!” Lance cries.

 

\---

 

The sun is half risen, peeking through the towering rock formations above them and minutely warming their night-chilled skin. The bikes begin to slow their descent as they pass through patches of early sunlight until, finally, they come to a stop seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

“Why are we stopping?” Lance asks, his brain summoning images of cannibalistic desert folk. He discovers he would really rather not be eaten by anything. Ever.

“We’re here,” the spider responds, and she and Keith slide off her bike.

“But where’s _here_ ?” Lance insists, tripping clumsily onto the sand. “There’s nothing _here_.” He gestures to the vast expanse of nothing around them.

“That’s what you think,” Rocket says smugly and nods to his companion.

The spider’s luring the thick, spiked branches of what faintly resembles a cactus away from the face of a large, red boulder. Underneath, a metal hatch begins to reveal itself. “Ta dah,” she grunts as she spins the handle and forces the door open.

Keith and Lance edge closer and peer curiously inside it. All they can see is darkness beyond. They share an apprehensive glance.

Meanwhile, their jail breakers are camouflaging their bikes under preexisting beige-orange tarps and bramble near the hatch.

“Are we really going in there?” Lance mutters out of the corner of his mouth.

Keith shakes his head briefly. “Not until we know what’s going on.”

“Alright, troops. File in.” The spider motions to the hatch a la Vanna White and the little four-legged robot rolls inside. When the Paladins refuse to move, she tries again. “Well?”

“No. We’re not going in until we get some answers,” Keith says, standing his ground.

“Answers can wait, now let’s go,” the spider says and turns back towards the hatch. Rocket peers around anxiously.

“Not until you at least tell us why you broke us out.” Keith stares down the spider as she turns.

“There are bound to be pirate ships flying over any minute,” she explains, growing irritated and a little frantic. “If they see us, we’re done for, so come on.”

“How do we know we can trust you?” Keith pushes.

The spider looks him dead in the eyes. “You don’t.”

“ _Aud…_ ” Rocket timidly interjects. “Do you hear that?”

A low, mechanical whirring sound tickles the hairs on the backs of their necks and makes all their spines involuntarily stiffen.

Audax listens for a moment and then jumps into action. “It’s a ship. We have to go.” She steps over the threshold and into the tunnel, and looks expectantly back at the Paladins. When they, again, make no move to follow, she turns away and says, “Fine. Get captured again. Or better yet, die. See if I care.” And she disappears into the darkness.

Rocket moves to follow behind her and then glances fretfully back at Keith and Lance. He sighs, torn. “ _Please_. Come with us. If that ship sees you…” He shakes the thought away.

Lance looks at Keith. “Look, maybe we _should_ just—oh no.” Off in the distance, a foreign ship breaches the horizon. For a moment, it seems like a mirage, rising like a heat wave over the desert sand. Then its shape and sheer size become more apparent as it approaches at an alarming rate.

Rocket’s eyes grow comically large beneath his goggles and he frantically gestures to them from the doorway. “C’mon, we gotta go!”

The ship grows closer, casting a gloomy, ovular shadow beneath it. Lance steps toward the door, but Keith remains.

“Hurry!” Rocket yelps.

“Keith, come on!” Lance urges, trying to get through that impenetrable, stubborn look in Keith’s eyes. “ _Keith_!”

“Rocket, just close the door!” The spider barks, her face appearing once more.

Laserfire begins to pepper the sand behind them.

“No!” Rocket refuses and holds his hand out to the Paladins. “ _Come on_!”

“Keith! Let’s go, you stubborn mullet!” Lance cries, inching closer to the hatch.

Keith glances up at the ship, shakes his head like he can’t believe what he’s about to do, and then sprints into the hatch behind the others. The door slams shut and they’re submerged into complete darkness.

For a moment, they all remain still, breathing heavily in the safety of the tunnel as they listen to the ship sweep overhead once, then twice. After the third flyover, the sounds finally dissipate and they all sigh in relief. Then as the touchpad interface on the little robot begins to glow bright white to light their way, the spider begins to lay into Keith. “What was that out there, _huh_ ? You could’ve gotten us all killed! You could’ve compromised our location. Hell, you might’ve already! _And for what_? You trying to prove something, pretty boy?” She stands imposingly above Keith.

He stares hard right back at her. “I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m just being _cautious_.”

“Oh, is that what they call caution on your planet?” she scoffs. “Because on Avium, we just call that stupid.”

Lance and Rocket gulp, both expecting a fight.

Keith tightens his fists. “I wasn’t about to blindly follow you into a dark tunnel just because you said so. You haven’t even told us what’s going on. I mean, who are you anyway?!”

“Oh, you wanna know what’s going on? My name’s Audax and _I just rescued you and your disproportionate friend over there.”_ She points a hairy, accusing finger at Lance. Lance’s jaw drops, incredibly insulted. “And you sure have a piss poor way of showing gratitude, my friend.”

“Yeah, okay, _thanks_!” Keith retorts. “But why?”

Meanwhile, Lance expresses his grievances to Rocket. “ _I’m_ the disproportionate one? She’s a giant spider!”

“Oh, there you go with the gratitude again. Very heartfelt. I’m touched, really.” Audax places a hand over her heart.

“She has _way_ too many legs to be proportionate!” Lance wails.

“Everybody be quiet!” Rocket shouts, sound echoing hollowly down the tunnel. “Please,” he adds meekly once he has everyone’s attention. He turns to face Keith and Lance. “We saw your ships go down yesterday morning and then we were told to break you out. We don’t know much more than that, but Cal’ll explain it all back at headquarters. So, please. Come with us.”

The Paladins are quiet for a moment and then Lance, hit with sudden realization, asks, “Wait, yesterday morning? We’ve already been here for an entire day?”

Rocket confirms with a nod.

The other Paladins must have realized strange things are afoot since he and Keith had been incommunicado for an entire day (and who knows how long days are on this planet). Lance, no matter how how far-fetched, somehow hoped that they would be out of here before their friends even noticed that something was awry. He had hoped that this would be a small detour, but he now understands that it might take quite some time to get off this planet. _If_ they get off this planet.

“Who’s Cal?” Keith questions, looking intensely uncomfortable and apprehensive.

“Calrax. Our leader,” Audax speaks up, still crossing her arms and looking off down the tunnel.

“Not really a _leader_ , per se. We have more of a direct democracy,” Rocket elucidates, until petering out after seeing the withering stare Audax is sending him. Then he mutters, “Yeah, he’s basically the leader.”

“So… there are more of you? Back at… headquarters?” Lance asks.

“Yeah! I mean, there aren’t _that_ many of us, but there’s Cal and Frizz and… you’ll just have to meet them!” Rocket exclaims, trying to make up for the animosity brewing between Audax and Keith. He glances nervously between Lance and Keith. “Sooo… will you come with us?”

Lance opens his mouth to agree in the same moment that Keith responds, “I don’t think so.”

Lance slowly and almost mechanically turns his head to glare at his companion. Keith pointedly crosses his arms.

“One moment, please.” Lance holds a polite finger up to Rocket, and swings it around to jab it in Keith’s direction. He huddles himself close to the Red Paladin. “ _What are you doing_?” Lance hisses, his forehead hovering just above Keith’s.

Keith leans away. “I’m not following them down a dark tunnel,” he says at a perfectly normal volume.

Lance shushes him loudly.

“It’s really not that dark!” Rocket calls out.

“Keith, come on,” Lance insists.

“You know what? If you wanna go, just go,” Audax speaks up and then glances nonchalantly over her shoulder. “Have fun in the desert.”

Keith nods stiffly to her and moves to exit the tunnel. Fingers on the valve wheel, he hesitates when Lance places a careful hand on his arm. “Keith,” he says softly. “Let’s just see where this goes.” He looks over at Rocket, Audax, and the little robot further down the tunnel, and lowers his voice even more. “We don’t really have a lot of options right now. I mean, what if another ship comes by out there? We’d be toast.”

Keith finally looks at Lance, his eyes dark and full of a serious, conditional understanding. He lets go of the handle. “Okay.”

Rocket peers up from the ground, hopeful. “So, you’ll come with us?”

Keith looks at Lance and nods. “Yeah,” he replies. “We’ll come.”

“Alright! Good— _great_! Right this way!” Rocket exclaims and then waves them on down the tunnel.

And so they begin. Audax takes the lead, the light from the little robot illuminating her 6 robust legs and casting shadows like eerie, naked branches on the earthen walls. Rocket and Lance walk side by side in the middle of the group and Keith lingers behind, taking up the rear. They travel for a few minutes in silence, both Lance and Rocket growing antsy in the uncomfortable absence of sound.

“So… we haven’t been formally introduced!” Rocket, grasping for a conversation topic, says enthusiastically. “I’m Rocket, engineer and first generation Aviumite.” He tips his goofy flap hat, revealing a few sparse hairs. Then he gestures to his companion. “And that’s Audax and she isn’t normally this grumpy.”

“I’m not grumpy!” Audax snaps.

“What about you?” Rocket ignores Aud’s protest gleefully.

“Name’s Lance. First class fighter pilot, beloved by all.” Lance assumes an air of both modesty and arrogance. “And that’s Keith and he’s always this grumpy.”

“I am _not_ grumpy!” Keith protests.

“And who’s this wittle guy?” Lance asks, stooping a bit to coo at the robot trekking on ahead of them, twitching its posterior antenna back and forth.

Rocket stops and shoves his dusty goggles up his forehead and squints around. “Who?”

“Him,” Lance repeats, gesturing this time. The robot pauses and swerves around to face them.

“ _What_? You mean the robot?” Rocket asks incredulously. “It doesn’t have a name.”

“What?! How could you not name him?!” Lance sputters. He looks to Keith, who has caught up to them now, for support.

“ _It_ ,” Rocket reminds him.

Keith watches Lance, mystified.

“But he’s so cute!” Lance blusters on. “He has a _tail_!”

“ _Antenna_ ,” Rocket corrects once more.

“I’m naming him Emperor Zurg,” Lance says decidedly.

“But a robot can’t be an emperor…” Keith puzzles.

Lance frowns at his companion. “Aw, c’mon, Keith. Didn’t you ever see _Toy Story 2_?”

“ _Toy… Story_?” Keith asks, miffed.

“The classic animated franchise? _Buzz and Woody_ ? Did you even _have_ a childhood?” Lance grows increasingly agitated as Keith’s expression grows more and more perplexed.

“What does that have to do with toys? And who’s ‘Zurg’”? Rocket squints heavily at Lance, his air-quotation marks lingering in the air.

“The movie’s about toys and Zurg is the bad guy. Any questions?”

Both Rocket and Keith fix Lance with a wary “I might have just found a finger in my chili” look.

“Yeah, okay, you know what? Whatever. I don’t have to explain myself. It’s a great name. And look! He loves it!” Lance cries as Zurg’s tail begins to wag faster. “And I love him,” he says weepily, wiping at his eyes.

Aud, now far ahead of them shouts out, “What’s the hold up?! My grandma moves faster than you and she’s dead!”

They resume their journey further into the desert earth, Keith falling behind once more.

“So... this a normal day for you guys?” Lance asks after a brief bout of silence.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, kind of,” Rocket babbles. “We do stuff like this all the time. It’s uh…” Rocket snaps his goggles back on over his mildly protruding eyeballs. “Pretty dangerous at times. But somehow we manage.”

“Uh huh…” Lance eyes Rocket skeptically. “What do you do exactly?”

Rocket nods ahead, viscerally glowing with pride. “You’ll see.”

They round the bend and are face-to-face with a dead end.

Lance shoots a concerned glance at Keith. The Red Paladin looks just about ready to bolt in the opposite direction when suddenly a section of the rock wall slides away to reveal a touchpad. Audax types in a quick passcode and the tunnel begins to rumble ominously.

“Uhhh is this supposed to happen?” Lance asks, holding onto one of the vibrating walls for support.

Audax sends Lance a devilish smirk and the dead end suddenly does not seem to be much of a dead end anymore. The wall of rock thunders as it slowly falls away, faint green light emerging from the room beyond.

Then all is quiet as they take their first tentative steps through the threshold.

“We’re the Moonslighters and _this_ is our headquarters.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, thanks for reading the third chapter! It took a little longer to get this one out because school is hard and papers don't just write themselves. I'm not super happy with this chapter, but I'm just gonna throw it out there and see what happens. Anyhow, feel free to comment and thanks again for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, welcome! As complete and utter Voltron trash, I figured I'd write fan fiction, because what else should I do as a responsible adult? Anyway, Lionheart is just a working title for now because I needed to pick something and GAYS IN SPACE: THE MUSICAL didn't quite fit. Chapters will likely be posted sporadically, but might be a little speedier if you feel like dropping a comment ;)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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